Sunday, 2 March 2014

Hello there everyone. World Of Crap has a brand new shiny website over here at www.worldofcrap.co.uk. You should go there, all the cool people are there already. Staying here would be a bit silly, really.
You will be redirected there in a few moments.

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

I've been a busy bee, I'm moving this blog over to a hosted site. This is only really so it's easier for me to arrange my old stuff into categories etc. While I'm moving it over I'm giving the archives a bit of a tidy up. I'll let you know when I'm done; it should only be another couple of days or so. The address won't change, it will still be worldofcrap.co.uk. Probably the only noticeable changes will be a new menu bar, and a lot more shitty art that I did in Paint. I'll keep you guys up to speed on the Facebook page. In the meantime, here is an interesting and educational article.

Monday, 3 February 2014

Well,
that's half an hour of our lives we won't get back. Last night me and
the mister had a bout of ennui, and decided to play this -

We'd
bought it from a charity shop in Wales a couple of months ago, but
stuff kept getting in the way and we never got round to playing it.
Eventually, after putting everything we own into alphabetical order,
watching every episode of The Foster And Allen Show
ever made, and sterilising all our cutlery, we had to face the sad
truth – there was nothing else to do but play this game.

We settled
down with the various bits and pieces, safe in the smug knowledge
that at least we weren't out vandalizing bus stops. We clung to that
thought as the game went on, because we needed to feel something
good about playing this game.

According
to Board Game Geek, “Dream
On is
an exciting new board game that answers the age old question 'What do
my dreams really mean?' The game provides over 1000 dream
interpretations derived from the works of the world's most prominent
dream analysts."

Here
is the bored, I mean the board -

Even
the board looks like it's going to sleep.

Also
included are a load of interpretation cards, which we'll get to in a
minute. Note that someone enjoyed playing this game so much that they
went to the trouble of going out and photocopying a few million of
these cards. This was presumably around the time of the game's launch
in 1992, so the chances of them having a photocopier at home would
have been slim. That means they would have had to go out, find a shop
with a photocopier, and pay 10p a copy. This game does not deserve
that.

Now
then – the rules!

I
think the general aim of the game is to be able to read people's
minds. Let's see -

First
– all the players select a piece and place it on the START square.
We're all over this shit so far.

Now
then. The person selected to be the 'dreamer' (in this case, the
mister) selects a card and reads one dream aloud from the card.

This
is the card he picked -

The
dreamer reads the dream out, and the other players have to write what
they think is a convincing interpretation of it.

This
is what I wrote -

Then
all the players apart from the dreamer vote on which they think is
the correct/most likely interpretation.

Hang
on, wait, what? How are we supposed to do that with only two players?

Then
we spotted this -

Fuck.
A whole four minutes wasted. Also, the adults thing is questionable.
Never mind, we are nothing if not belligerent. So we decided to
continue playing, albeit with slightly tweaked rules.

Are
you asleep yet? If not, well done. I am.

Then
the mister hit on a bright idea. The dreamer reads a dream out, then
we both write down an interpretation of it, so together with the
interpretation on the card there are three different interpretations.
Then the dreamer reads out all three, and the other player has to
choose the correct one.

Spot
the flaw in that plan.

What
is the point of me writing anything down on my card? I'm going to
know that's not the correct answer. Nevertheless, we played with
these rules for a while, and I kept choosing my own interpretation
just to piss the mister off.

After
roughly half an hour, here's where we were on the board -

By
now we were so bored we were actively trying to lose, just so the
game would stop.

After
a while we even gave up on that and just started writing down dreams
we'd had (real and imagined) and what we thought they might mean.
Here are some of them -

Then
we had to decide whether to carry on playing or to hit ourselves over
the head with a sack of bricks. Luckily, it was time to go to bed
before we could decide.

Saturday, 1 February 2014

I know I
talked about the internet in part 1, but I'd also like to mention a
few specific websites as we go along with this series. And if you
think that's cheating – it's my blog, so there.

1 Kids TV
channels

I will
take you through the current listings labelled 'kids' on my Sky Plus
box, right now, at 6.00pm -

Some
Dreamworks shite

'Johnny
Test'

Scooby Doo
and the cyber chase

Sam and
Cat (I know about this – it's two shrieking teenage girls having
wacky japes)

iCarly
(same)

NEW –
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Peppa Pig

Ultimate
Spiderman

Hulk and
the agents of SMASH (not the mashed potato brand)

Liv And
Maddie

Gravity
Falls

The Hive

Sofia The
First

Jedward's
Big Adventure

In The
Night Garden

Peppa Pig

Sally
Bollywood

Franklin
And Friends

Scooby Doo
and the cyber chase (+1)

Fireman
Sam (new version)

Ben and
Holly's Little Kingdom

Ultimate
Spiderman

Family fun
time and rhymes

In The
Night Garden

Harry and
his bucketful of dinosaurs

Sabrina
the teenage witch (the cartoon series)

Yu-Gi-Oh!
GX

The hive

The
mysterious cities of gold

Peppa Pig

Jessie

Sam &
Cat

Jedward's
big adventure

Dreamworks
shite

I think I
can stop there, because I've come to the end of the kids' channels. My god.

Our
equivalent – Saturday morning tv -

Oh, it's
Saturday, there's no school, yay! So do we lie in bed, scrolling
through our iPads and scratching ourselves? No! Of course we don't,
because it's 1990 and iPads haven't been invented yet.

We spring
out of bed like an eager young lamb, and immediately head downstairs
to commandeer the tv before our older sisters/parents can get to it.
Because, dammit, this is the only day of the week where we get to
watch shows aimed at us – viewers who haven't learned to use a
knife and fork properly yet.

It's only
for a couple of hours, so everyone else in the family can just shut
up and find something else to do. Me, I have to dedicate these
precious hours to Phillip Schofield, Roland Rat or similar, as they
'gunge' people and introduce American merchandise spin-offs that will
fill my brain with colours and sounds.

BIG SHOPS
-

Nowadays
you can get everything everywhere. Want a battery operated spoon?
Primark have some. Want some leggings? PC World has a sale on, what
are you waiting for?

I must
admit, as a person rapidly skidding towards middle age, it's a relief
to be able to get everything I need in one converted warehouse,
rather than having to trudge round so many shops that I need a
'coffee break' in between.

Ok, I
guess I've never been a big fan of shopping. But even I never dreamed
that one day you'd be able to go to one building and get all the
things on the following shopping list -

onions

knickers

WD40

vaccuum
cleaner

prescription
glasses

box set of
Steven Seagal movies

Korean
noodles

wellies

pile cream

6”
screws

You can
get all this from my local TESCO EXTRA BIG FUCK OFF HYPER SUPER FUN
HAPPY STORE. What you can't get is someone to come and assist you
when you have an 'unexpected item in the bagging area' yet again.

Our
equivalent – shopping

“Oh, I
just need to pop to the butchers, then Farmfoods, then the opticians,
then Topshop and Miss Selfridge and H&M and New Look and then I
need to go to the chemist...”

I was not
a fan of being dragged round all these shops. Even now, when
everything I buy is for me, I like to have it in one handy package.
Ok, maybe my life would have been improved had we had these SUPER FUN
MEGA HAPPY STORES in our lives. I give up.

Blame and
claim culture

Did you
chip a fingernail at work? Or did you sit down on the loo at work and
momentarily experience discomfort because the loo seat was a bit
cold? Even worse, did someone wilfully injure your feelings by
calling you a 'div' at work? Sue those bastards! Phone our hotline
now, and we'll get you millions of pounds!

Disclaimer
– we will not get you millions of pounds. We will get you up to and
including five hundred new pounds, of which we will take up to a
hundred percent.

Everyone
everywhere is scared of everything. Even I have days where I don't
want to leave the house in case a meteor falls on my head, or in case
a terrorist comes up and tries to do terror at me.

But when I
was growing up, getting injured was not a career. It was a vocation,
at best. We did not expect to have our clumsiness rewarded with
money. That's what clowns and Eddie The Eagle were for.

Now, if
you're short of money and don't want to ring WONGACASHNOW4U, you can
simply claim you were tripped over by a member of Al Qaeda, or that
someone looked at you funny, and all your financial problems will
disappear!

Our
equivalent – looking where you were fucking going

You know
what used to happen if you fell over in the street? Everyone would
laugh at you. Certainly they wouldn't offer you money.

Of course,
work accidents did happen, and they were generally quite serious, but
back then people tried to avoid getting injured. They didn't
like being injured, what with the pain and all. Getting injured was
seen as a bad thing, not as an equivalent to winning the lottery.

When I was
growing up, if you tripped over in the street you were unlucky, or a
div. If you broke a nail or had your 'feelings injured' while at
work, then you were a fucking crybaby, and didn't deserve the fucking
job in the first place.

By the
way, I wrote these last paragraphs on the toilet. Just thought you'd
like to know.

Wikipedia/IMDB/Yahoo
Answers (especially Yahoo Answers)

Killer of
pub conversations about... well, anything really. But especially
about “Oh, who's that guy from that thing, you know, he was in
Morse that one time...)

Nowadays,
one self important fuck in the group will casually tap away on his iPhone, and declare -

“Richard
Fucknuts, born 1968, was best known for his work in 1990 drama series
Impotence Clinic. He went on
to be a spokesman for...”

At
which point everyone punches him.

Our
equivalent – finding things out

If
you're like me, you have a mental list of 'oh, I must Google that
when I remember.' These things never get looked up, because we're too
busy doing important things like looking at porn or playing Candy
Crush when we're on the internet.

Before
the days when you could Google anything, you had to put some work
into finding things out. You had to read books, visit the library,
even (shock horror) talk to other people and ask them. This was a
good way to acquire knowledge. Certainly better than just going on
Wikipedia, and here's why.

Thursday, 30 January 2014

Before we
begin, congratulations to Andrew Lee, who has become World Of Crap's
first Twitter follower! See? It can be done, you just have to pull
your fingers out and follow his shining example. I haven't really got
on with Twitter in the past, but like a woman deaf to her friends'
criticisms of her new boyfriend's drug taking, wife beating ways, I
am convinced it's going to be different this time round.

Anyway, on
to today's topic.

You know
why I love Lazy Town? Because
when I watch it, I get an overwhelming feeling that I'm doing the
right thing by sitting on my arse eating chocolate. I have no desire
to be like these rubber headed cretins, with their sports candy and
their 'exercise is fun' delusion. Admittedly, I don't think the show
is aimed at 30 year old, sherry drinking underachievers, but still.

Long
time readers will remember my first Lazy Town post, where I
present Robbie, the cake eating, gym avoiding grinch as the show's
real hero. And I stand by that assertion. All Robbie is trying to do
is lead a normal life, free from screeching bloody kids and having to
eat fucking 'sports candy'. Lazy Town
usually follows Robbie's attempts to achieve this normality, as he
goes to insane lengths to rid the world of overzealous aerobics
instructor/Errol Flynn tribute Sportacus, his concubine Stephanie,
and the above mentioned rubber headed cretins. Today's episode is no
different. It is entitled 'Sportafake', and by watching it we learn
that Robbie makes a better Sportacus than Sportacus ever could.
That's how rubbish Sportacus is.

We
begin with a scene involving Miss Busybody acting like these women. The mayor, having no balls of his own, surreptitiously
tries to build a pair out of wood while fixing Busybody's fence.

SHIT!
The head flies off his hammer, landing... fuck knows where, we don't
see for now. The scene abruptly shifts to our hero, Robbie, cursing
the fact that Stephanie has wandered into his eyeline. If only he
hadn't been using a magnifying periscope, maybe he wouldn't have
accidentally spotted her from his house underground. Oh Robbie, you
so silly. I'm not sure what Robbie is really looking for – a rare
breed of squirrel? A Wimpy bar? A woman wearing those leggings that
you think are proper leggings but in reality are just thick tights
and you go around with your bum exposed without knowing?

Ok,
he's pissed off because Stephanie is absent mindedly throwing some
kind of hoop about. As Robbie quite rightly states - “It's a lovely
day to be lazy!” Yes it is, and as such, Stephanie should be in the
park with the rubber headed cretins, drinking cheap wine and trying
to cadge cigarettes off passing strangers. Robbie has every right to
be angry.

See,
this is my main problem with Lazy Town.
Robbie clearly has the kids' best interests at heart, and as such he
wants them to have a normal life full of beer and fun, instead of
compulsory aerobics and apples. He wants them to live.
Sportacus just wants them to have toned glutes, whatever glutes are.
I think it's your arse.

To
this end, Robbie has erected a 'No Playing' sign on the street, but
it gets knocked down by... you guessed it, the hammer from earlier.

“FUCK”
shouts Robbie.

He
goes into a lament about how life was ace when people actually
listened to him. This soliloquy is a masterpiece, but since he's
underground and there's no one around to listen to him, he has to
provide his own applause afterwards.

We
cut to three of the rubber headed cretins – Pixel, Ziggy and Trixie
– doing what they're actually supposed to be doing on such a hot
day. They're lying there on sun loungers, shooting the shit. With no
desire to do anything. That is the correct way to be. Then, of
course, Stephanie has to turn up and shit in everyone's hats by
insisting they play 'catch', the most pointless game known to man.

Oh
good, it's
Sportafuck. He surprises everyone, including and especially me, by
immediately sitting on a sun lounger and going to sleep. Maybe I
misjudged Sportacus – I assumed he'd immediately take boring
Stephanie's side and insist that the gang all start doing jumping
jacks, RIGHT NOW.

Oh
for fuck's sake. He was just joking. My head banged on the keyboard
when I realised this. I think I need a glass of wine. It's already
taken me an hour to watch three minutes of this episode.

And
now all the rubber headed cretins are dying to play catch, despite
having dismissed the idea thirty seconds ago. But when Sportafuck
turns up, they're so eager to net some brownie points they
practically jizz in their pants. They all fancy him.

After
a bit of filler in which the aerobic arseholes play catch, we return
to Robbie, who is ranting about the fact that no one ever listens to
him, only to Sportacus. He decides it must be Sportacus' moustache
that compels them to listen. I agree Robbie, I think it is the
moustache, along with the promises of free sex and money.

Robbie's
genius plan is revealed – he is going to dress as Sportacus so he
can boss the kids around for himself. Because if five children do
what he says, then he'll be able to go back to eating cake in peace.
Why couldn't he just do this anyway? Because shut up, that's why.

There
follows a brilliant 30 seconds where he takes the piss out of
Sportafuck's moves before having an asthma attack.

We
return to Miss Busybody and her minion, before Stingy turns up and
starts announcing that he owns everything in the manner of 'Murica.

Meanwhile,
the cretins are still playing catch, when Sportacus receives an
urgent message (a tweet?) that 'shomeone'sh in trouble!' He fucks off
on his sportaladder.

While
Sportacus is busy fucking off, Robbie decides now is the time to
implement his plan. He bounces over the wall (what wall?) hoping the
kids will think Sportacus has just been the victim of a Doctor Who
style timeslip, and has gone from up in his airship to right next to
the kids in 0.5 seconds flat. -

Oh
my god, the kids fall for it. This lowers my respect level of them
to, well, below zero, because it was at zero before.

For
some reason, Robbie does an impression of Popeye for a while. Then he
fails to know the rules of Catch, which lowers my respect level of
him. But only for a bit.

Meanwhile,
the mayor falls out of a tree. I don't know why.

SportaRobbie
cracks and demands that everyone stop playing, right now. Then he
issues his version of the ten commandments. The first is that they
shall eat bubblegum. Wait, why is bubblegum forbidden? It's not bad,
it's certainly not fattening. Possibly Sportacus banned it because

(wait,
I was nearly not going to add this part as it's too rude. Fuck it.)

because
Sportacus wanted to not tire his friends' mouths out, because he
wanted them to use their mouths for other things.
Now I am ashamed of myself.

Moving
quickly on -

We
cut to Stephanie writing in her diary -

“Dear
diary,

Sportacus
isn't acting right. By now he'd have given me at least three sexy
looks, but so far – none! OMG! That trixie is such a bitch, with
her rubber face and her pigtails. I hate her. Why haven't I had a
period yet? Also, I thought I'd share some more of my poetry on
Facebook, but so far no one has liked it, despite me posting it 76
times. I hate the world, and I hate my parents for dying and making
me go live with my rubber headed uncle. I hate him, even if he is the
mayor, he just DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ME! And why won't he let me dye my
hair brown? He says it's because I'll never get a job later in life,
but if an employer can't see that I'm a non-conformist, that's their
problem. I don't want to be some puppet for a fat cat. Sportacus, why
aren't you texting me back?”

Meanwhile,
the real Sportacus is helping the mayor to build his shit wall,
because the mayor 'won't get any sex if he doesn't finish it'.
Sportacus is such a fucking do gooder. But then Sportacus is called
away to a real emergency, involving Stephanie being a whining bitch.
Again. Some of the rubber headed cretins are bullying another of the
rubber headed cretins. Sportacus steps in -

As
it turns out, he takes the side of the bullies, because Ziggy was
daring to eat more than his fair share of bubblegum. Sportacus
decides it was perfectly reasonable for the bullies to hold Ziggy
upside down in order to extricate the offending bubblegum. Like they
would have wanted it, after it had Ziggy's spit and god knows what on
it.

No,
they make him spit it out, but it's not enough, so they make him
vomit up the bit he's already swallowed. At this point, Trixie claims
she doesn't want it any more. I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.

The
gang make friends and immediately start playing basketball, despite
having forced one of their number to throw up only seconds ago. I
really hope Robbie steps in soon. Meanwhile, the mayor is still
building that wall. I don't give a shit about this, so I assume you
won't either.

Oh
god, 'someone's in trouble' again, so the real Sportacus fucks off to
help. It's the mayor again. Sportacus builds the mayor's fence for him in a matter of seconds,
which makes us wonder why he didn't do that in the first place. Then he goes away. He's
a bellend.

While
real Sportacus is off in his airship eating apples and doing god
knows what, Robbie is back, offering the kids a bag full of
McDonalds. Predictably, Stephanie looks pissed off at the thought of
anyone enjoying themselves ever -

The
rubber headed goons all view this as the heaven sent opportunity it
is, and immediately start nomming the goods. Only Stephanie remains
tight-anused.

Robbie
turns up while (it sounds like) the mayor and Busybody are having
sex, and knocks down their fence.

Meanwhile,
the real Sportacus turns up and demands to know why they're all fat
from burgers. The gang tell him that he gave them the burgers, and to
stop being such a dick. Stephanie, despite having eaten a load of
burgers herself, isn't happy at this, and goes crying to her uncle.
Her uncle, as usual, is useless, being infatuated with Miss Busybody.
Stephanie wants to know why Sportacus isn't the man she fell in love
with. Then, unexpectedly, the mayor comes out with a gem that
resonated with me -

“Sometimes
you just have to speak out, even if no one wants to hear it.”

Story
of my life. Still if the mayor of Lazy Town decrees my personal
philosophy to be a good one, then I shall carry on with it.

Then
Miss Busybody shouts him and he runs away, yelling “I'm coming, I'm
coming, I'm coming!” This is a kids' show.

He
trips over a skateboard and some stuff happens. Oh dear, he's spilled
her drink.

Sportacus
turns up again, relishing the chance to stick his nose in everyone's
business.

Then
Robbie turns up, so we have the age old problem of 'these two look
the same, but which one is the real one? Robbie finds this amusing
and decides to make the real Sportacus do some ballroom dancing, for
reasons never explained -

Then
they do a weird version of 'Bop-It', before the mayor comes along and
asks “Which one of you is the real Sportacus?
This, I'm convinced, is what inspired Magnus Scheving to write the
series in the first place. He's been aching for a scene in which all
his followers could stand up and yell “No, I'm Sportacus!” Sadly,
the only other person claiming to be Sportacus isn't filled with self
sacrificial reverence – he just wants people to think he's
Sportacus so he can go back to eating cake.

The
Sportacuses have some sort of aerobics competition to determine who
is real. The the mayor suggests the town should keep them both.
Wrong. You normally have one too many Sportaci in your town.

Then
Stephanie suggests a race, because the real Sportacus would obviously
win that.

The
race begins, and the real Sportacus is obviously winning, until Miss
Busybody gets sent somewhere on a skateboard, I don't know. What, do
you expect me to have actually watched this episode properly?

A
ha – the real
Sportacus abandons the race in order to save Miss Busybody. I see.

Oh
wait, I don't. Turns out everyone is foxed by Robbie winning the
race, and they declare him to be the real Sportacus. Only Stephanie
is unconvinced, and she speaks out,
as told to previously by her rubber headed uncle.

“No,
don't send him away, I love him! And all his insistences that I'm too fat and that I eat too much, and all his bullying me into exercising
more, despite the fact that I'm 12. I love him!”

Everyone
else buys this, and Robbie is rumbled. Robbie tries to play the legal
angle, stating that whoever won the race was the real Sportacus, but
he is foiled by the rubber headed cretins pulling his mask off, in a
display of supreme irony,

We
end with Miss Busybody pulling the poor mayor out of the friendzone
by rewarding all his hard work with a kiss. Maybe, if he grouts her
tiles, she'll let him bum her, I don't know.

Tuesday, 28 January 2014

This is
not going to be one of those annoying 'OMG THIS STUFF WILL MAKE YOU
FEEL SOOOO OLD!!!!1111' posts. No. This was just a discussion between
me and the mister, over things we couldn't live without, but somehow
managed perfectly well without when we were growing up. Which makes
us feel, like, sooo old!!1

I am
basing this on a British childhood really, because my American
readers will have had some of these things around since they can
remember. Then America decided that they wanted to inflict their crap
on other countries, and slowly the rest of the world caught up.

Because I
have a list longer than my arm, I'm going to split this post into
several parts, because I do need some me-time you know, to sit there
drinking red bull and watching Antiques Roadshow.

1. The
internet

This is
maybe not such a given, because a lot of you young scallywags assume
the internet has been around since 1798. No. I didn't have my first
glimpse of online until 1995, with the help of Netscape Navigator -

Ok, hands
up if you remember any of the following things – getting 3000 free
AOL CDs in the post/whenever you buy anything ever, the dial up music, Geocities, waiting ten minutes for half a picture to load
(and not just because of all the advertising), your sister buggering
up your conversation with 'manicsfan83' because she selfishly decided
to make a phone call. No? Then you lose!

Our
equivalent – Teletext

Shut up,
this had all the features of your so called internet; we were quite
happy with it back in the day. It had endless loading times,
celebrity gossip, and fake psychics. Ok, it didn't have porn, but
sometimes you could squint and pretend that Bamber Boozler, host of
the Channel 4 Sunday Teletext quiz Bamboozle,
was a nudey lady. Not that I ever did that, but I'm sure you could if
you wanted.

2. Mobile
phones

My god,
the day I got my first mobile phone I felt like such a badass, and an
important badass at that. It was a big Motorola brick, but still
quite modern because it had texting on it. Much like a word processor
of old, you couldn't see the entire text in one go; you had to scroll
through each word from left to right. So if you realised you'd made a
mistake at the beginning, you generally couldn't be arsed to go back.

No one
ever phoned me as I had no friends, but it didn't matter. I would
still have a fine old time choosing my ringtones just in case I got a
wrong number or something. And then I upgraded to this bad boy -

Allow me
to play you the song of my people -

Unless, of
course, you could work the 'composer' feature, and then the world was
your lobster. I got really good at using the composer, and ended up
being able to make any tune on request. But my favourite thing to do
was to bash the buttons on the composer for ten seconds, then have
whatever godawful noise came out as my ringtone.

Our
equivalent – The phone -

You know,
the phone? The actual phone that householdshave? That has an area
code? Where, if you ring and there's no answer, you just assume
they're not in, not that they hate you? That.

Also, BT
phone boxes. Great for making prank calls (like when you phone
someone's house and just blow a raspberry down the phone), useless
for making actual calls as they were all crackly and cost about a
pound a go.

3. The
Lottery -

It could
be you! Tip – it won't be. But when The National Lottery started in
1994, every single person in Britain was convinced it would be them.
So we went mad buying tickets, in a frenzy akin to something out of
Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory.
And all workplace/pub/playground discussions were immediately wiped
out and replaced by 'what we'd spend our winnings on'.

We
still have the Lottery, but recently the ticket price has doubled to
£2, and hardly anyone plays it any more. Sometimes we have a flutter
though, because quite often you do get three numbers up, which these
days will net you a cool £25 – not to be sniffed at.

Our
equivalent – The football pools

Typically
run by Vernons or Littlewoods, the idea was to correctly predict the
scores of all the upcoming football matches of the week. My childhood
was filled with my parents talking mysteriously about something
called a 'score draw', or a 'no score draw', and putting ticks in
little boxes, which a man in a hat would then come round and collect.
I can't remember how much you could win on the pools, but it
definitely wasn't millions. It might have been enough to retire on,
if you just ate tins of beans and never got your hair cut, I don't
know.

4. Netflix,
Love Film etc -

Bored
of everything on TV? Can't find anything to watch? Then I suggest you
stop taking those drugs you're on, since they've clearly turned you
into a mental. There is always
something good to watch since TV on demand was invented. For a mere
fiver a month, a household can watch almost any film or TV show ever
made with the touch of a button. Very Jetsons.
Especially now that Youtube on your TV has been thrown into the mix.
Now it seems inconceivable that you might have to flick
through the channels to 'see if there's anything good on', and hope
you haven't missed the start of it.

Our
equivalent – going to the video shop

This
was a big thing, generally undertaken when the family was all
together on a Friday or Saturday evening. As our family consisted of
my parents, my two teenage sisters, and a fat, whining me, numerous
rows over what to rent were guaranteed.

The
proceedings would start with my parents casually saying, “Oh,
there's nothing on TV tonight, let's get a video.” Magic words to
me. Immediately my young mind would be filled with thoughts of the
entire Hanna Barbera collection, or perhaps The Little
Mermaid. Naturally, the video
would be my choice;
those peasants I lived with wouldn't be given a say.

It
hardly ever turned out like this. I wanted something with no more
than two dimensions, my sisters invariably wanted either a horror
movie or Road House, my
mum wanted anything to do with Coronation Street or
Brookside, and my dad
wanted something about a war. Any war. Or about Hank Marvin. Because
of this inability to agree, the family generally ended up renting
something nobody wanted to watch, probably not even the people who
starred in it.

Then
there were those times where, when I'd been really
good, I won a trip to the video shop just for me, where I could pick
out a video of my choice. This was where I got silly, and all
thoughts of Hanna Barbera went out of the window. I would choose
something like The Fly, and my parents would get all pissy and make me choose
something like The Happy Unicorn.

Well,
that's it for part one. I'll probably write part two over the
weekend, just so you know and aren't endlessly pacing up and down
crying “But when will she write it? When?”
Now you can relax.